Weaponized Empathy and the Edge Case

Weaponized Empathy has long been a topic of discussion here. Today, let’s break down a very common use of it in private circles, in debates between regular folks on social media.

The tactic looks something like this:

Conservative: I believe in [insert policy here].Progressive: Here is a sad story about someone (or even a hypothetical someone) who would be affected by the policy. Do you want this person to suffer?Conservative: Well, no, of course not…Progressive: Well then, you shouldn’t believe in [the policy]. It’s immoral.

This is an exceptionally low bar to clear for the Progressive. No matter what political positions a person might have, at least some people, somewhere, can be found who would be negatively affected by it. If, for instance, the tax code were simplified, the poor IRS agents auditing people with a microscope for violations of their arcane system might lose their jobs. Or, perhaps some poor person somewhere might end up with slightly less from the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Clearly the Conservative then wants poor people to starve, and IRS agents to be unable to feed their families. This is, of course, a rather blatant example, but read on for a more subtle and more powerful version of the argument.

Once a negative example is trotted out, the Progressive declares moral superiority and thus victory in the debate. Clearly he is more moral, because he wants to make sure nobody slips between the cracks, and everyone gets their fair share of… whatever.

A classic example can be found in this debate with Ron Paul, wherein the liberal moderator trots out a hypothetical person who has “a good job” but somehow has no money, decides not to buy a healthcare plan, has no existing government aid, can obtain no charitable aid, and possesses no friends willing to help him, and is experiencing an expensive health problem. What would happen, asks the liberal?

The absurdly unlikely (but theoretically possible) scenario is thus implied to be proof that we need government-managed universal healthcare.

Conservatives need to stop accepting this low bar as evidence of anything. Time after time, I’ve witnessed Conservatives argue these types of absurd positions by positing equally unlikely ways the free market or charity will cater to all such edge cases. Once dragged down to this position, victory is impossible. The best debaters may score a draw, edge case vs. edge case. Everyone else will lose, and the Progressive will trumpet his moral superiority over the evil, greedy Republican Uber-Nazis until he is blue in the face.

Ron Paul, being a very smart man and a doctor himself, argued this thing to a draw. I doubt many others could have pulled this off.

This is the wrong way to argue the point. It is, in fact, tacitly accepting that the Progressive’s position that the edge case means anything about national policy in the first place. Progressive policies, even if they are theoretically universal in scope, will also be subject to edge cases, as the Charlie Gard incident demonstrated. In fact, one essential truth about government micromanagement is that it is likely to result in more such edge cases, not less. Bureaucracies aren’t known for their intellectual flexibility. More people will fail to get the care they need, not less.

But even that isn’t quite the right way to argue the point. Leftism is demanding a sort of universalism that simply isn’t possible in any human institution. And, invariably, when the institution falls short of universal perfection, it is excoriated by the Left and used as justification for giving them (as in the Progressives themselves) more power under the excuse that they are morally superior. It is nothing more than a blatant power grab, thinly disguised as a moral argument.

This must be challenged immediately in any debate with them that goes down the edge case path. “Are you demanding perfection? That every single person receive 100% of all needed care? If so, you are a lunatic. Hard cases make bad law.”

This moves the bar up a notch. Now the Progressive must demonstrate that his system is better at a meta level, not just an individual hard case level. Weaponized Empathy can still be deployed at higher levels, but this is generally much more difficult, especially given the fact that Socialism generally produces very poor results when taken as a whole. However, expect the next rung on the Progressive argument ladder to be something along the lines of “well, Nordic Socialism is just great.”

When you enter these sorts of arguments your opening salvo, your *starting point* is the statement:

When conservatives criticize progressive policies they say some variation on “that won’t work”. When progressives criticize a conservative position they say some variation on “That is mean”. Consequences are the *result* of choices, and if you make bad choices you get bad consequences.

My response to “You have this guy who had a good job but never had any money and failed to get health insurance” is:
Well, at least his kids can’t inherit his debt. Because he chose a 65 inch TV and beer over his health. He chose a BMW over a Ford, he chose a bigger house than he should of. In fact, I bet that there’s a lot of choices he could have made that had he been a little choosier with his spending he could have afforded health insurance. Which is not the same as health care BTW.

So
—
Progressive: “Do you want this person to suffer?”

Me: No. But THEY made a choice. Should I restrict their freedom by having people like Debbie “Pakistani IT” Wassername-shultz, Crazy Joe “Just stick a shotgun out the window” Biden and Hilliary “Mail-server in my Bathroom” Clinton[1]–people who BTW have never had jobs outside of government[2]–make their choices for them?

Me: And are you saying YOU oppose choice?

Me

—-

With two exceptions I’ve paid my own health insurance (or was on my wife’s work policy) since just after I graduated high school. The first exception was when I got out of the military and went back to school (parent’s health plan) and then from 2014 to 2016 *WHEN GOVERNMENT MANDATES PRICED ME OUT OF THE MARKET*. As soon as my income caught up with the market requirements I was back in there. Of course, the insurance I have now is ~8 percent of my take home pay (for me, my wife and daughter) has a 6500 per person deductible, and ZERO assistance on any medical bills AT ALL until I hit that 6500.

To do that I sacrificed some of my take-home pay, so we ate out a little less, bought cheaper drinks, etc.

Of course, I’m demonstrably smarter than the average.

[1] There’s always 3 democrats in the news for stupid stuff, so keep three in your head, and their perfidy at all times. Very useful.
[2] Ok, so Hillary worked for the Rose Law Firm. Because her Hubby was the Governor-rapist of Arkansas.

Your low bar reminds me of fauxahantus, blovating about how Republicans want people to die. And there is no arguing with someone who is so convinced of their own righteousness that they immediately see any other argument as the heresy(s) of evil

Set up a public web site with the goal of helping all these poor people. List the poor that need help, and post the names of all these “caring” progressives and how much they have personally donated to help out the poor. Then everyone can see how much they really care by how much money they donated.

Re: Universal Health Care.
Remind your leftist opponent that Charlie Gard is not an outlier. A couple years back in that same perfect Universal Health Care system a young man in hospital died of thirst because the oh so caring hospital staff wouldn’t provide him with water. Also if you want to see the face of Universal Health Care in this country look to the VA because that is what everyone will get if it passes here.

@Michel : or, as in Belgium and the Netherlands, the “caring” gubmint starts actively promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide in order to reduce last-year-of-life outlays. This too is “justified” by a few edge cases, then predictable morphed into a rampant phenomenon.

Example:
Wolf Bitchtits – “Do you honestly wantsociety to just let him die?”
Targeted non-Progressive – “So you’re telling me that someone who is struggling to provide for their spouse and children, who maybe has elderly relatives who also need help, has to also be responsible for the hard luck of a well-off but irresponsible idiot they don’t even know??? YOU’RE SAYING that people who can barely afford health insurance for themselves and/or their families because of Obamacare, people who are paying a lot more for that insurance now and getting a lot less in benefits with a much higher deductible, have to also carry the load for some stranger who could easily have afforded their own insurance but simply decided to not get it because he knew he could freeload off of someone else???”
“Tell you what, Wolf – you make about half a mil every year by sitting in a chair, looking into a camera and reading off a cue card. Why don’t YOU pick up the tab for that guy, instead of dumping it on somebody who has to choose between paying the massive deductible and uncovered expenses for his kid’s wisdom teeth or helping his father pay for the heart medicine he needs to stay alive?”

You have to verbally stick that bowie knife in their guts and twist it back and forth a few times so their intestines spill out.

It’s all academic. The money is almost gone and and the world is about to enter the great “No One Cares” era. This will do wonders in sorting this argument out with the Left discovering the joys of just trying to stay alive.

You’ve already lost if you accept the initial premise: that it is the governments role to take care of the individual. A free people take care of themselves, period. That means some will not, and it is not the role of government to redress that fact. If that is mean, then I’m a mean person. I’d rather be mean than be a slave.

Well the Left thinks it has it’s “Holy Grail” in pr out in Virginia. I don’t think they understand there is no one out there to sway anymore (except maybe some foolish Senators). They will use this to try to stifle the rising outcry against them and their policies. I don’t think they’ll be successful, but at the same time I don’t think anyone really knows were this is all going.

Charlottesville is the quintessential ‘edge case’, where a tiny bunch of white supremacist losers got into a rumble with Antifa and BLM idiots. This will indeed become a weaponized event by the Left, who will use it to frothingly proclaim “Ya SEE? ALL WHITE MEN ARE EVIL RACISTS!” They’ll use it as a “Remember the Alamo” slogan to justify a soon to be expanding list of outrages their thugs will commit. And the MSM will not only support them, but egg them on.

They’re inventing grievances to make themselves feel like they’re part of a mighty and righteous Justice Movement. And they seem to want to act out their fantasies of bringing their version of “justice” to predominate – by the Sword.